Final Dethtination- A Horror Story from the House of Klok
by BrokenSolitude
Summary: On a peaceful, average Sunday night, Toki and Skwisgaar watch a horror movie. That, of course, is shortly before things start to go horribly, horribly wrong... No pairings, one-shot. Happy Halloween!


**Final Dethtination- A Horror Story from the House of Klok**

_For MeltedClay_

"Toki! Toki, c'mon, are you gonna watsch thish movie with usch or what?!" Murderface griped sourly, banging on Toki's door. The inside of the bedroom replied with a muffled squeak. William rolled his eyes, kicking the toe of his boot into the door softly.

It was Sunday night again in Mordhaus, and that meant two things to the five members of Dethklok- the usual excessive debauchery via drinking, drugs, and sluts, and movie night. Usually young Toki Wartooth was the one to round everyone up and herd them all to the RecRoom, despite their weaving footsteps and loud protests, but tonight, he was desperately trying to avoid any contact made between the television screen and his corneas.

Tonight was different.

Murderface, however, was having none of that. He'd been dealing with Toki's Sunday shenanigans for many years- it was finally time for a little sweet, sweet vengeance. And so, for the briefest of moments, all grew still outside Toki's door. He let out a sigh. He was safe.

And then the door imploded inwards right off its hinges and nearly crushed his skull.

Nathan Explosion strode darkly into his bandmate's room, and without a word, tossed the despondent guitarist over his shoulder and proceeded towards the RecRoom, Murderface trailing along off to his side. A bit of comic cackling would have completed the shit-eating smirk plainly visible beneath his moustache.

The frontman made it to the RecRoom and deposited the frenzied guitar player on the couch between Pickles and Skwisgaar. He towered over the younger man, his stern glare none-too-pleased about being the ringmaster in their little circus.

"Look, Toki. Sunday night movie night was _your_ idea. This is all _your_ plan. And _you…_ well, uh… you _did_decide you could share the choices with everyone, y'know? I mean, c'mon- you're not showing good sportsmanship here." Nathan's anger melted away into a gentle chastise, which seemed twice as effective on Toki as it did anyone else.

"Yeah. Toki! Don't be schuch a dick about thisch!"

"Shut the hell up, Murderface. You're acting no better." The frontman barked as his annoyance returned two-fold.

"Toki. I was busy. We're all busy people. And we took the time out of our busy Sunday night schedules to, uh…come here and…like…do stuff…together. Watch a movie. So you are gonna sit there and watch this movie, or we are going to cancel movie night, forever, and it's your job to explain to the supermodels why they couldn't stay longer tonight."

Toki slowly nodded, still silent, and made himself comfortable on the couch.

"Good. Skwisgaar, isn't it your turn to choose?"

Skwisgaar huffed his reply, just then, a smirk plastered to his pale features, and stood up. Vertebrae audibly cracked when he stretched, prowling over to the Klokateer holding the movie selections for the evening.

"Dids you finds dem?"

"Yes, master. We did. Here they are."

Skwisgaar was handed the selections, and imperiously looked down his nose at them before jabbing a finger at the leftmost one in his hands, which he handed back to the gear. The other two he discourteously flung away from him and onto the floor.

"Ams watching dis ones tonight." He announced, prancing back over to the couch and settling in with his guitar again. The hooded figure nodded, and popped the DVD into the side of the large flat screen television after it was lowered from the ceiling. After he pressed "play," he moved to back away, but in his observance of the band, managed to slip on the discarded DVD cases, and performed a rather comedic split-fall that ultimately broke his entire body in half. The band didn't even flinch, and hardly noticed as two more Klokateers appeared out of seemingly nowhere to drag the body out of sight.

"So...what did ya pick, Skwisgaar?" Pickles' head lolled on the back of the couch as he glanced over at his bandmate.

"Ams Norwegian hor-skers film. Is bouts a girl whats dies and uses reflexskives surfaces ands elecstronics to haunts peoples she knews."

Pickles blinked as Toki shuddered visibly.

"So...dood, yer makin' us watch the Norwegian version of 'The Circlet? All of us have seen dat movie like, a thousand times! Well, 'cept maybe Toki. You know the kid doesn't really like horror flicks."

If Skwisgaar's smirk had ever been more sinister, the band couldn't remember the time, nor place.

"I knows." He nearly chirped. "Now shuts up, Pickle, is starting."

"Whatever, dood. If I gotta watch this, I'm gonna hafta get high ta do it. So that's what ah'm gonna do." He replied, a little disappointed.

Skwisgaar knew what he was doing. Toki had been following him around more than usual lately, and it was really starting to grate on his nerves. He was there during practice, standing unbelievably close and trying to stare down the Swede's fingers, as if willing them to make a mistake. He was there when Skwisgaar was trying to primp and polish and do whatever it was Skwisgaar did when he wasn't playing his guitar. And, most importantly, Toki was there when Skwisgaar was romancing his stable of gmilfs, and it always seemed to be at the most inopportune moment for him. Every time, it started him, and they giggled and fled.

To date since the behavior change, the gmilfs had experienced an innumerable number of Dethgasms. Casanova himself: three.  
It was getting too much. He couldn't go on like this. He'd tried yelling, bitching, implementing the cold shoulder, and telling Offdensen on him. But nothing seemed to work. So it was time to pull out the big guns. Maybe if Toki knew horror movies would be Skwisgaar's choice every time it was his turn from then on, he'd back off.

As the band settled in to watch "_Jenta som brukte elektronikk å hjemsøke folk,"_three-fifths of them became quickly bored and dejected (seeing as the movie was entirely in Norwegian, anyway, and so they couldn't understand a word being said), one-fifth snide and egotistical, and one-fifth frightened and trembling. About halfway through the movie, Pickles was stoned out of commission, Nathan was snoring into his personal recorder, and Murderface was stabbing patterns into the upholstery before he just plain got up and left, a string of "thisch is scho gay"'s preceding his departure. Finally, it was just Skwisgaar and Toki awake and alert enough to be glued to the television set.

"Skwisgaar, why yous picks dis movie?" Toki asked through chattering teeth, one eye peeping out at the screen from behind his shielding hands. Skwisgaar shrugged.

"Oh, yous knows. Toughts maybes you, ah...toughts maybes you _enjoys_it." He yawned as the dead girl in the movie sucked the face off of one of the protagonists with black magic.

Toki turned indignant.

"Mans, Skwisgaar, whys you has tos be such a reals bad guy to me?" He pouted, the movie temporarily forgotten as the climactic cliffhanger ending approached.

"Whys you gots to be such annoyskings dildo to _me_?" The Swede countered. Toki scuffed his foot on the carpet thoughtfully.

"Maybes you amsn't thinks abouts why. Maybe you amsn't realize dat... I follows you around because I wants to pals around with you." He quietly replied.

The movie ended, but instead of rolling credits and then the main menu, the screen turned to static and white noise. Neither of them seemed to notice, however. The "dumb dildos ting" was probably just broken. That's what they had Klokateers for, however. Someone would fix it eventually. Meanwhile, Skwisgaar just couldn't leave the issue at hand alone. He never really knew when to quit.

"Yeah, well what's if I don'ts want to pals around with you?!" His voice raised a little bit. Toki stood up, getting in Skwigaar's face now that he had the height advantage.

"Ams yous stupid? You never wants to pals around, Skwisgaar! Dat's why I follows you! Because is only ways we cans hangs around together!" Toki pursued. Skwisgaar was beginning to feel a little guilty, but that only fueled his anger.

"Dumbs Toki! Yous always messings up in my buskinesses! Stay outs of my life!"

Toki was hurting, and in his rage, wildly flung the remote at the television set, where it managed to injure the screen and send cracks running through the static, which suddenly changed color from black and white to black and an eerie, pulsating blue.

"No, Skwisgaar, you's stays out of my life! I's nots a dildos lady whats has no cares for anyone buts herselfs!" He fumed, turning and stomping out of the room, fear temporarily forgotten. The only thing he heard until he got back to his room was the sound of blood rushing in his ears, and a vengeful, plaintive "I's nots a lady!" screamed at the top of his rival's lungs.

Skwisgaar sighed, guitar forgotten, and ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. He stood up, picking up the DVD box as he passed it, and looked down at it disdainfully.

"Pfft. Was terribles movie." He muttered, tossing it on the floor behind him, where the cover popped open from the force.

Inside was a second DVD, which was labeled with a piece of acetate that simply read: **USE THIS DISK ONLY.**

* * *

Toki curled up on his bed, unable to sleep with memories of the movie and the fight swirling around in his brain, and angrily wiped at his eyes before laying his head on his knees and staring at Deddy bear forlornly.

"Whys he gots to be such a dicks?" He asked of the bear. The bear, of course, didn't answer. That is to say, not in the way Toki would've preferred.

Instead, the room grew very quiet, and, suddenly, very cold. Toki shivered, drawing his blanket around his shoulders, but it wasn't enough to keep him warm. Still angry, he popped up moments later and rose to his full height while standing on his bed. Reaching up, he could palm the ceiling with his elbows bent. There was a heating vent centered over his bed, and one on the opposite side of the room, which seemed to be blowing cold air. Thinking he could fix it from where he was, the young Wartooth boy made his way Astronaut-style across his twin bed to the area directly under the grate.  
A rather advanced thought pre-empted his attack on the vent, when Toki quickly realized he was going to need a screwdriver to look around in the grated vent, so he hopped off his mattress and padded over to his work table. Plucking up the only full-sized Phillips there, he bounced back over and on top of the mattress and under the vent. Toki straightened up, raised the screwdriver, and looked up.

The otherworldly face that stared down at him with a gory smile was enough to sweep his legs out from under him and nearly rend his bladder pee-less.

Toki fell back onto his mattress with a thump, the box spring creaking under the assault. He managed to hit his head on the way down, and saw stars for a few moments. Shaking his head, he looked up at the vent again, only to find that nothing was there. It was just a normal, empty heating duct. Toki took a deep breath.

"Ams okay." He told himself. "I's just scareds from de movie. Ams my imgadginskations. Ha…ha ha…yeah, dat must be it. Ha…" He trailed off as his heart beat valiantly fought for a return to normalcy, and felt around for Deddybear. Feeling him just behind his head, Toki pulled the small stuffed bear into his line of vision.

He wasn't expecting Deddy to have red painted "X"'s on his button eyes, a small Norwegian flag impaled on his belly, and terrifying tendrils of modeling glue pouring from his cute little embroidered nose.

* * *

William Murderface usually wasn't the first person anyone turned to for comfort or safety, but his room happened to be the closest, and located just down the long and oddly spooky hallway from Toki's. The bassist had been out grabbing a snack from the massive stashes in the kitchen, and was on the return trip when he heard an odd noise from behind him in the corridor. It sounded like…was that…screaming? It sounded like a distance police siren, low and straining at first, but gaining clarity as it rapidly approached.

"aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhHHHHHHHHH RUNS AWAY MOIDASFACE! MOVIE AMS REAL!"

True terror was present on Toki's face and in his eyes. Deddy bear was clutched by his tail and trailed behind Toki in an uncharacteristically uncaring way. The guitarist barreled past the bassist, continued down the hallway for a few yards, threw open the door to Murderface's room, jumped inside, and slammed the door in his wake. Murderface quirked an eyebrow and scratched at the back of his head, turning around in a circle to see if he could figure out what had spooked his bandmate. Finding nothing following the Norwegian, he shrugged and ambled along to his room, opening the door cautiously.

Toki had become a shuddering lump in Murderface's bed, and all that could be seen of him were two hands poking out on either side of the bassist's sheets, clutching a battle axe he'd pulled from a display. Deddy had been discarded on his way into the room, and was lying in the doorway, a prostrate and battered ball of fuzz.

To say the least, the gruff musician was taken aback.

"Uhm…Toki? Might there be a…partichular reashon you're scheeking refuge in my room?" He questioned. The lump on the bed shook.

Suddenly, Murderface remembered he had been on his way back to his room in order to look up some top-quality porn involving brutish roleplaying girls with a phallic vegetable fetish. Realizing his precious porn time was being highly interrupted, he became irritated.

"Hey, kid, if you didn't come here becaushe you've realisched _I'm_the fun one to pal around with, then schtop acting scho gay and get outta here!"

Murderface had his back turned to one of his best medieval armor displays. Neither Dethklok member noticed when one of the arms shifted just slightly.

"No, Moidasface, is nots safe. Da movie-" Toki started, but the bassist cut him off.

"Psscht, uh, Toki? The movie ischn't real. Everyone in it isch an actor. They get _paid_to shcare people. Geesch, don't be schuch a-"

Murderface had no opportunity to finish his insult as a soft "sshing" noise reverberated in his right ear. He froze, and his startlingly lime green eyes grew wide. As if in slow motion, he reached up to touch his right arm, drawing back with a trembling hand turned red.

The cut from the fallen sword was just a graze, no worse than a skinned knee, but it was real enough to get the bassist on the bed with the rhythm guitarist. Through his chattering teeth, the bassist tried to regain his attitude.

"Schit! My arm! Urgh...I mean...I...one of the klokateersch probably fucked up my dishplay when they were cleaning. Yeah. That'sch gotta be it. Schtupid robot, letting them schuck at their jobsh like that. Schomebody'sh gotta step up! And Toki, you...errrrgh, you're puttin' ideash in my head! Schtop it and jusht...get out!"

As he pointed at the door, the lights went out. The shrieking was enough to rival a snake discovered in a girls' locker room, and Murderface was very suddenly under the blanket with Toki, brandishing his knife with shaking hands.

A rustling sound reached the both of them, followed by a soft, clacking sort of noise, like long nails drumming on a table, or a dog's claws click on the floor. The air started to crackle with a foreign, surreal chanting. If they strained, they could almost make out the hair-raising words...

TICK (tick, tick, tick) TOCK (tock, tock tock)...

"Oh, Goddammit, itsch just my black forescht clock!" Murderface breathed happily. Toki sighed, letting out a nervous little giggle. Their shoulders slumped, and they loosened their grips on their weapons.

Right before the blanket was snatched off of them.

The thrashing would've have made their most mosh-pit hardened fans proud. The ear-splitting screaming, not so much. Toki and Murderface blindly stabbed at the air with their weapons as a pair of glowing eyes hovered maliciously above them, but hit nothing. A high pitched giggle could be heard in the room, and then, much to their relief, the lights flickered back to life, revealing a hulking, black-clad monster wearing a hockey mask.

The guitarists rattled the rafters with their voices again before they realized that the figure looming over them happened to be Nathan, who look rather displeased that his bandmates had been attempting to kill him. He lifted his mask.

"Heh, look what I found in my closet earlier. We could, uh, play some hockey tomorrow now that I've got my mask." He announced bemusedly.

The terrified Dethklok members blinked in surprise before lunging forward in tandem to non-brutally embrace the singer. However, Nathan backed up, sending them both sprawling face first on the floor. Toki was the first to recover.

"Ow! Nat'ans, what's de hells? We's ams almosts dies just nows!" He whined pitifully from the floor.

Nathan rolled his eyes, one hand drifting to the back of his neck briefly to scratch at an itch.

"Yeah, well, you're not the only one. I just caught this creepy hot chick tryin' to, uh, sneak into my room by crab-walking backwards...she, uh...she struggled when I picked her up and I think...I think I broke her. Like... in half."

Their fear temporarily replaced by curiosity, the guitarists right themselves and rubbed at their aches and pains.

"Oh, wowee, Toki wants ams sees!" He said, bounding off the floor and towards Nathan's room. The other two quickly followed.

When they arrived at Nathan's monstrous bedroom, the frontman threw open his door and pointed inside. Toki and William poked their heads in the room cautiously, peering about for any sign of the totally broken in half hot chick. However, there was no sign of her.

"Uhm...Nat'an? Ams you sures you brokes a lady in here?" Toki looked at him curiously.

Nathan stared back in disbelief, before shoving his mass through his door and glaring around.

"Yeah! I know when I break chicks, Toki. And she...she...was...right...there..." Nathan trailed off, surveying the carnage.

Crests. Crests everywhere. Drawn in what looked like blood, the coat of arms of Norway covered Nathan's walls, his ceiling, and his bed. But that wasn't all. A mound of meat in wet, sticky cabbage rested on Nathan's pillow, unfamiliar folk music poured from his stereo and...

"Ugh, what _is_this stuff?" The large singer growled as he waded through the piles of fluff and slippery, pinkish ooze. Just then, a white-faced Pickles showed up at the door, stumbling into his band mates.

"Doooods! Dooods, hey- uh, Nathan? What the feck is on yer floor?"

"I am trying to figure that out, Pickles. Now don't tell me. Something seriously freaky happened to you."

"Damn right it did. Motherdouchebag showed up in my room, literally draggin' her ass, and then right as the light on my joint blew out, she feckin' reassembled herself and started walkin' over to me! I thought it was the shit I was smokin', but look!"

Pickles solemnly held up three of his dreads, which were significantly shorter than the others.

"They fell off when she touched them! Just turned all dead and fell off! I don't have a lotta hair left as it is...if I catch her-"

"It's sheep skin!" Nathan bellowed finally, slowly making his way back through the fluff.

As he came to the conclusion that all of the white fluff and pink slime was, in fact, sheep's wool and poorly shaved bits of skin and muscle, the folk music changed to carnival music, which featured a little girl laughing maniacally and singing a-melodically, "Ding, dong, Dethklok is dead..."

That was more than enough to freak the four gathered members of Dethklok into a frenzy. It certainly didn't help with locusts exploded out from the wads of organic matter strewn across Nathan's room and the ceiling began to ooze buckets of blood.

"Whoa. Brutal. And it gives me some song ideas." Nathan muttered as he swatted at the swarm of locusts.

Pickles rolled his eyes before tugging on the back of Nathan's shirt.

"C'mon, let's go make sure-" He began.

Just a piercing scream filled the air. Toki gasped.

"Dat's sounds like Skwisgaar!" He announced, before breaking into a sprint towards the Swede's room, all previous fighting forgotten. The other band members followed not far behind.

* * *

The door to Skwisgaar's room was ajar, and the band was loathe to enter one at a time. They could hear a strange sort of gurgling, whining sound from inside, as well as the panting, terrified pleading of the lead guitarist. Looking around at each other, they forced the door all at once and jumped into view.

The monster- the one Nathan had broken in half- was standing fully erect over Skwisgaar's bed. He was being levitated, about four feet in the air, and a strange mistiness was being drawn out from his mouth.

Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of the whole situation was that he was naked, and there was a naked lot of crushed and lifeless gmilfs strewn across his room and stuck in the strangest places, including impaled on his Explorer..

"He ams getting his skouls sucked out!" Toki exclaimed, which seemed to be ignored by the monster.

"That's pretty metal." Pickles commented. None of them were terribly sure of what to do, and what was happening to Skwisgaar actually looked really cool, so they were torn between recording it for posterity and putting a stop to it.. Finally, Murderface stepped forward.

"Hey! You! Dildo! Do you have a lischence to schuck thosch schouls?"

He made a lunge for the beast, and ended up falling right through it. She cackled, her lower jaw dislodging from her face, and slowly, to the band's horror, her head spun around in a slow circle. Inhumanly, her body backed itself up against the nearest wall and affixed itself to the surface, climbing upside-down and backwards until all of her was off the floor.

Murderface was daunted as he recovered, once again finding himself on the floor.

"Becausche...I'm a notary, you know. I schuppose we could work schomething out." He muttered.

The ghoul skittered across the wall towards the grate in Skwisgaar's room, bent the bars, crawled in, and disappeared. Skwisgaar looked from the wall to the band, soul reallocated, and suddenly found himself plummeting to earth in the wake of her levitation spell.

"Ow! Fucks! Yous stupids ghost-lady! I's de one's who buys yous movie!" He howled, scrounging around the dead GMILFS for his pants. A locust perched happily on the top of his head as he wriggled into them.

Once Skwisgaar had gotten himself together and seemed pompous enough to be declared recovered, Dethklok backed out into the hallway and made their way towards the RecRoom, to see if they could make sense of what was going on for themselves. Toki babbled on about the movie incessantly, berating his Scandinavian counterpart more than once over how "dis ams alls yous faults!"

Pickles rubbed at his eyes in aggravation.

"Shaddup, Toki! Fer the last time, the movie ain't real! It's just a movie! Look, this is prahbably the result of gettin' too drunk and too high and not goin' ta bed early enough, okay?" He rationalized.

They made it into the room, and collectively gasped at what they saw.

The television. It should've stopped working or been repaired or replaced by then, but it was still functional, pulsating with a supernatural glow as tendrils of ghost-essence snaked out at them. They seemed to whisper for the band to come closer, but they were hard pressed to find an attention span long enough to transfix. It seemed something about the night was finally working in Dethklok's favor.

Toki, in a rare show of bravery, walked over to where the DVD case was located on the floor, and look a long hard look at what he saw, before sidling up to Skwisgaar.

"Uh, Skwisgaar?"

"Ja?"

"Dids you takes da movies out and puts it back in box?"

"No, Tokis, dat's what we has da hoodeds guys for." The Swede scoffed. Toki sighed, and pressed the eject button on the DVD player remote. While the action did nothing to help the merging of dimensions on the screen, a silver disk did indeed pop out and fall to the floor with no one to catch it. Toki looked at Skwisgaar evenly.

"And dids you's remembskers to tell da guy dat there are _two_ disks in speckals editions set, ams yous only supposeds to watch _one_?"

At this, Skwisgaar looked honestly dumbfounded and lost.

"I's toughts dey knew."

A string of Norwegian expletives followed that statement, as the Swede was viciously beaten with fists and a plastic DVD case by his bandmate. Nathan finally pulled the two of them apart.

"Guys! The fuck is the problem?" He demanded. Toki looked up at him, eyes wide, about to pitch another tantrum.

"Dildos Skwisgaar here forgots to tell da gear dat dere are _two_ disks with movie. One is for watchskings, ams the other ams cursed and only for **collectors**!"

No one had ever heard Toki quite so angry, but they could understand his rage once they caught on to what had happened. It was at that moment that the TV sent off sparks enough to make them all jump back. As usual, Nathan took charge.

"Okay, so...can we like, uncurse it?"

"Does you tinks no one ams tried dat?!" The guitarist hissed.

"Well how do we get rid of it?" Murderface questioned.

"Yeah, and like, what are the signs of bein', y'know, _haunted_by this thing? Jus' so we know what we're dealin' with?" Pickles was not in the mood to play any more games with this thing. He was just too drunk. Too drunk.

"Tells 'em, Skwisgaar." Toki stressed.

"Okays, wells, firsts its gets cold."

"Oh yeah, dat's why I firsts runs from my room into Moidasfaces."

Skwisgaar thought for a moment, and started ticking off the list on his fingers.

"Well, dens you has all de baskics hauntings stuffs, you knows: nosebleeds, buckets of bloods, scaries musics, ghosties sucking souls, bugs, dead stuffs, smells like pickleds herring-"

The guitarist was cut off just as a strange, pungent aroma wafted through the air. It seemed to emanate from the direction of the television set.

"God, Murderface, what are you _eating_ lately?" Pickles whined.

"It waschn't me!" He replied. Toki sniffed the air deeper.

"Is pickleds herring." He moaned. Hope seemed to be fading fast. Skwisgaar continued.

"Is one more things. Yous gets a phonecall." He dutifully clarified.

Everyone sighed in relief.

"Well, none of us have had that happen, right?" Nathan should not have been so quick to talk, just as Murderface's phone rang. Much to their horror, everyone else's phone followed suit. The Dethtone riff had always seemed so metal and inviting, but in that instant, it sounded cold and like the tolling of many funeral bells. Pickles was just high enough to answer the phone.

"Hello? Oh. Okie. I gotcha. Yeah, I'll tell em. Okay. Thanks. Have a good one." He chatted amicably before hanging up the call.

"I'm 'sposed to tell you guys to look behind you." He chirped.

One by one, they all turned around, facing the giant television screen and the blue glow emanating from it. The face of the monster from the movie was there, all rotting flesh and dripping pus. Slowly, jerkily, as if it was a special effect done by stop motion animation, a hand and an arm emerged, clawing at the screen. And then another. And then the creature slithered out of the television and began to make its way towards them all.

It didn't take them long to vacate the room.

Dethklok ran as a group through the giant stone fortress, screaming their heads off and choosing no particular direction. In the distance from every angle, they could hear giggling. Creepy, bone-chilling giggling. In front of them, a white blur shot by. They stopped, and took off down another hall. There again the blur beat them. And then behind them. Dethklok ran a stop-start race until they were boxed in, and huddled with their backs together in the middle of the hallway, casting their terrified eyes this way and that. The blur and the giggling entranced them- it became all they heard and saw, until, suddenly, she was standing there in front of Nathan, stalking ever closer.

Dethklok had no way out and nowhere to go.,

"Aw, man, if anyone lives through this, somebahdy tell my brother that I always hated 'im." Pickles moaned, more disappointed than scared.

Murderface wordlessly whipped out his dick and began pissing on everything- every rock, every floor tile- everything. Toki leaned over to Skwisgaar and muttered, "is all yous faults, Skwisgaar. I really hates you." Nathan just rolled his eyes and hoped that dying would be less annoying that living around his bandmates in their last moments together.

The monster's jaws opened, and each member of Dethklok felt their souls ripple inside them. She hunkered down, coiled to strike, her first intended victim Nathan.

The creature lunged. Nathan winced.

But nothing happened.

The roaring in Nathan's ears was not just from his rapid-fire heartbeat, but from the last-breath screams that had erupted from his bandmates. Realizing that they couldn't hear the straw-sucking noises of one soul removal, each member of Dethklok quieted and hesitantly opened their eyes.

The movie monster lay twitching in a crumpled, violated mass on the floor, pinned Impaler-style through the skull and out through mouth to a newly erupted crack in the floor tiles. Her twitching reminded Nathan of a dying centipede, which gave him a brilliant idea for a few more songs. But, perhaps more interesting, and even inviting, were the familiar pair of blue-gray hand-tooled moccasin slippers in view just beyond the corpse.

Charles jerked his ancient-looking pike- the handle of which was covered in strange runes and designs that looked almost African in nature- out of the floor, and, subsequently, the body of the monster, wiggling it in the air to dislodge any stuck flesh or bone, and then casually flipped it right-side up and used it as a staff to lean against, all while stifling a rather broad and uncharacteristic yawn.

"I'm putting the parental block back on what you can and can't rent from, ah, Gnatflix." He murmured wryly, one hand tightening the knot in his bathrobe tie.

Dumbfounded, the band nodded, until, one by one, they found their voices.

"What's ams dat thing?" Toki pointed at the pike. Charles looked at it, as though he'd just realized he was holding onto a primitive ritualistic killing machine. He shrugged.

"Ah, ancient anti-poltergeist device." He replied, hefting its weight. "Unknown origins, at least 3,000 years old, believed to be blessed, used in, ah, old exorcisms and whatnot. You know. It's pretty metal."

No one bothered to question why or how their manager had suddenly come into possession of a mysterious magicked chieftain's staff. It didn't really occur to them. They lived in a house full of ancient and antique weapons display- all of which were fully preserved and useable. It was probably just another art piece they didn't really pay attention to.

"Offdensen...how'd you, uh...how'd you know?" Nathan looked at him curiously, before his gaze flickered down at the stilled corpse.

For just a moment, something dark and implacable shimmered in Charles' eye. He challenged Nathan's gaze with that baser stare, willing him to ask again. And then it was gone, replaced by the very mundane and meek businessman he'd known for years.

"Just, ah...just lucky, I guess." He sniffed.

That seemed to be a good enough answer for the rest of the band, but Pickles still had a question.

"So, like, dood, whadda we do now? 'S'it like, over?"

A faint quirk of a smile met the eyes of Dethklok. Charles looked like he was about to say something, when all of a sudden, the dead girl popped up with a shriek of hatred and made straight for the band. They backed up, eyes wide, but Charles was there to intercept, catching the monster first in the back of the knees with his staff, and then in the neck, effectively stopping her dead in her tracks and throwing her back to the floor, where he pierced through her heart with the pike and then brought a reluctant and expensive slipper down on her skull, mashing it to bits and rendering her finished.

"Ugh." Charles wormed out of his slippers and tossed them aside, nose crinkling at the feeling of gray matter in his moccasins.

"Now it's, ah, over, Pickles. So, if you boys will excuse me-," the manager stooped down and grabbed what was left of the monster's hair- "I'll just get this out of your way."

He began dragging the corpse and his pike down the hallway, a trail of blood and gore following it, but paused momentarily to look over his shoulder.

"Oh, and boys? Next time, make sure to, ah, forego the special edition DVD's with the extra features, okay?"

Five heads nodded slowly as Charles waved goodnight to them and disappeared around the corner, prize in tow. They looked at one another, and then, in unison, at Skwisgaar.

"Uh...whats?"

* * *

Charles Offdensen tipped his snifter of brandy at his band in salute.

"Well, gentlemen, I think that, ah, congratulations are in order. It was a risk, but it seems the horror themed album was, ah, was certainly the way to go for the Halloween release date. We've been live on the market for four hours and we're already certified quintuple diamond in pre-sales alone. Well done." He gestured at the party being held in their honor with something that was almost an unfaltering smile. Almost.

The band, already impeccably hammered, swayed a little and blinked at him.

"Oh...er...so...yeah. I, uh...guess making Skwisgaar stay locked in the studio for three days after that dead chick chased us around had something to do with it." Nathan muttered, a bit bashful that an album filled with his lyrical fears was selling so well.

"Mm. I suppose some good did come out of the, ah, incident." The meek brunette man replied, only half aware as he intuitively scanned the guests behind demure glasses and labeled them with Minesweeper symbols and dollar signs in his head.

A thought occurred to Toki just then, which didn't happen often, but when it did, was often a stumper.

"Charles? What's ams happened to dat movies and de monster-ladies?"

A small glint of evil caught and held in the manager's eye.

"Well, ah, you see, the problem with the cursed movie is that killing the monster is only, ah, a temporary fix. As long as the movie has been watched by the last person in the chain, she'll keep coming back. So...we ah...added someone to the...well, you know what? Whatever. Case-in-point, it's all over, and you guys are safe. Now, if you boys will excuse me, I have to go attempt to place a monetary figure on our prospective income within the next three days."

Charles left them quietly, and while the band members all began to separate and peruse their own party, Toki leaned over to Skwisgaar and watched their manager disappear into the crowd.

"Boy, wonders what he meants by dat."

Skwisgaar just made a clueless _pfft_ noise, and, for the moment, the matter was finally settled, and all was right with the world. Moments later, a flaming kebab in a certain guitarist's hair would put an end to all that silent peace, but everyone knew better than to hope for anything more.

* * *

Charles sat down at his desk and picked up his phone, dialing an intra-office extension. He waited.

"Yes, sire?"

"Were you successful?"

"Yes, sire. He signed for the package and everything."

"Great. Burn the evidence. Lock away our copy and engage the laser security system. No one gets in or out."

"As you wish, sire."

Charles hung up the phone and steepled his fingers. Looking at the manilla folder on his desk and the files of personal information inside, he traced an apartment address with his eyes and slowly, connivingly, let a sly grin slip and stay perched on his lips, before turning his chair to stare out at the rising harvest moon. The only sound throughout the top of the great metal fortress for hours to come would be a reverberating, sinister laugh.

Meanwhile, Dr. Rockso discarded his DVD case without looking at the labels on the discs, as he was wont to do. Popping in the movie that seemed to be a gift from Toki, he settled down on his ratty couch with some popcorn and cocaine.

About halfway through the film, he wrinkled his clown nose.

"K-k-k...Dr. Rockso smells a dead fish, and he knows for sure it ain't him this time!"

And this his phone began to ring.

_Fin...**or is it?**_


End file.
